The Elusive

You always leave cliffhangers, sigh well i guess that's why we keep on reading, well other than of course it's a fabulous story and you're a great writer!

Have fun in Europe!
E
 
At the moment I should either be sleeping or writing my term paper instead of writing this. Who knew that ancient fish hooks could be so interesting? I shall haul myself to the library after dance class tomorrow night and stay there until my work is done!

Enjoy and please review ;)

Chapter 7
Memories


The first thing that she was aware of was the darkness. There was silence and then there was the sound of water rushing down. Arisha gasped as she felt ice cold water splash against her. She heard a clanging sound as someone put down the now empty water bucket. “Who are you?” She screamed into the darkness, but was given no answer.

The water chilled her bones. She shivered as the rivulets slid down her exposed skin and soaked her clothing. What were they trying to do? Give her hypothermia? Her head was still foggy. The aching was gradually subsiding from the after effects of chloroform. Arisha tested her bonds again. Her arms were tightly bound to the armrests of a metal chair. Her legs were shackled similarly. They were keeping her in the darkness.

Arisha heard footsteps approaching and then a light went on nearby. She tried to look for the source, but between the drenched locks of hair hanging over her face and her blurry vision she failed.

The footsteps came closer until Arisha realized someone was right in front of her. “You have nothing to be afraid of, little girl.”

Arisha felt a hand gently push the hair from her face. She looked up at a middle-aged woman with an oddly familiar face. “Who the hell are you?” Arisha shouted. Her arms clenched against the restraints holding her to the chair.

The woman smirked. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” She pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the younger woman.

“That’s very reassuring,” Arisha shook the water from her hair.

“Sarcasm is not your friend, Arisha.”

“I find it helps in situations like this,” Bristow furrowed her brow. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m a friend,” The woman remarked. There was a hint of Russian in her accent. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Who are you working for? Russian mafia?”

The older woman smiled and sighed. “Nothing like that.”

“Then who?”

“Your parents have been quite worried about you.”

“I’m an orphan.”

“So you openly deny your parentage,” The woman observed. “Do you know what the Covenant would do if they found out who you are? Arisha, they would kill you. They kept your sister for two year and yet they are unaware of your presence.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I know who your mother is. Irina Derevko.”

Arisha drew in a shaky breath and looked the woman in the eye. “Who are you?”

“My name is Katya.”

“Katya Derevko?” Arisha questioned after a moment.

“You’ve heard of me then,” Katya observed. “You’re not as stupid as I first thought.”

“You’ve only known me for about five minutes and you’re already judging me?” Arisha questioned.

Katya laughed. “Just like Irina.”

“Okay then, Katya,” Arisha shrugged wet hair out of her face. “Why didn’t you just come to me instead of the whole kidnapping thing?”

“Would you have talked or run?” Katya stood and crossed her arms. “Irina informed me of your meeting with Sloane in Zurich. What are you running from?”

“The CIA for one,” Arisha remarked. “MI-5, maybe SVR, and the South African government is hunting me because of some diamonds I stole last year. It’s not as if you don’t have skeletons in your closet.”

“How old are you now, Arisha? Twenty-five?” Katya questioned.

“Almost twenty-four,” Arisha answered.

“My God you’re young,” Katya shook her head. “But your mother was much younger when she joined the KGB and found herself married to your father. She had Sydney when she was about your age. The KGB wanted her to terminate that pregnancy. So you can imagine what their reaction was when they found out she was pregnant again.”

“What do you want?” Arisha suddenly snapped. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Giving you something to think about, little one,” Katya smirked. She stood and patted the young woman’s shoulder. “Irina should be here tomorrow. In the mean time be a good girl.” She drew away into the shadows and her disappearance was soon followed by a door slamming.

* * * *

Irina. Arisha cringed at the thought of that name. She remembered the woman looming behind the glass partition at the CIA. Since her encounter with Derevko two years before, many of her memories had returned. Arisha could recall with full clarity the time she had spent in Russia with Irina as a child. Her memory of the actual training she had gone through was still fuzzy, but everything else was there.

She recalled the man Matvei sitting at a desk reading something. He had always been reading. The documents on his desk were old. Arisha had tried to look at them once only to be swiftly reprimanded by her mother. From what she did remember they were written in Old Italian. Matvei Zaitsev had been reading Rambaldi’s manuscripts. What had Zaitsev wanted to tell her? He had said that she had clairvoyant abilities. Arisha found some humor in that. He must have been a loon. Whatever it was he had tried to kill her over it. Still, there were times Arisha recalled that she had known something was going to happen. Too bad it didn’t help me realize my aunt was going to kidnap me! They had made it sound like she was a prophetess or something crazy.

Much like Rambaldi himself had been. Arisha blinked in the darkness as the realization hit. Rambaldi had been an inventor much like Da Vinci, but dissimilarly he had been a prophet. Suddenly she remembered the letter someone had sent to her:

In you Rambaldi sought to preserve the talent that made him so remarkable. Do not be careless, Arisha.

“So I’m psychic then?” Arisha questioned into the air. She doubted anyone was listening. The room was cold and she could swear she would be ill by morning if she remained in the wet clothing. She wondered if Katya would even care.

She shook her head. When had she stopped using her old name? Arisha was merely the alias she had assumed out of convenience. Two years ago she had been Saoirse Flynn, she had been a respectable citizen, and her past had not been chasing her. In her mind half the time she still thought of herself as the British intelligence agent and sometimes had to remind herself that protocol could be broken seeing as she no longer worked for them. She did miss her family sometimes. Her siblings- or at least her adopted siblings - were the last of that family she had. And she had walked out on them.

The depth of her thoughts was broken as she heard the door open and footsteps approached her. The light went on overhead and she met the gaze of the woman standing before her.

“Saoirse?” The familiar voice was warm and tinted with a hint of concern.

Arisha stared into the light. “Hello, Mom.”
 
Hmmm, well Irina is supposedly coming to see her, but I can't see Arisha calling her Mom. Maybe it is her adopted mom.

hmmmm, sorry it took so long to read!
Erin
 
I'm finally posting a new chapter- although I think I wrote this in a bit of a rush. I've been incredibly busy. I'm heading off to Hungary at the end of the week for my first archaeology dig so I wanted to post this before I leave. My computer access is going to be quite limited over there- I'll survive somehow.

:eek:ldhi: :hug:
Thanks for reading and for your reviews!

Chapter 8
Slight of Hand

The single bare light bulb did little more than flicker a dim hue at the occupants of the small room. It was not needed for Arisha to see her mother's brown eyes clearly. She stared solidly through the air at the woman she had not laid eyes on in over two years.

“I never expected you to call me that,” Irina took a seat and smiled at her daughter. “How are you, Arisha?”

“Not too wonderful really,” Arisha remarked. “I think my hands are falling asleep. The last time we met things were a bit reversed."

"Now you're on the run just as I am," Derevko commented. "I would not have predicted this turn on your part."

"What difference does it make? What path I choose doesn't affect your life," Arisha inclined her head and smiled. "I was dead to you a long time ago."

Irina caught her daughter's stare and smirked. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stood. “I knew you were alive.” She paced a few steps and crossed her arms.

“Really? But then no one seems to stay dead in this business. Sydney included.”

Irina stood and paced a few steps. “I believed she was dead until I heard from your father.”

Arisha scoffed. "But you knew I was alive and you didn't tell him?"

"I couldn't risk coming after you though. If the Covenant were to realize what you are..." Irina's gaze became softer.

"'What' I am? Why are you talking like that?" Arisha suddenly felt the hairs on her neck rise. She shut her eyes, but images still flurried within her mind. Words followed them. 'If the Covenant were to realize what you are’ The blonde opened her eyes with a sudden sense of deja-vu. She had heard and seen this situation before. Somewhere.

Irina was watching her with a concerned glance. "Katya doesn't know."

"Know what?" Arisha questioned demandingly.

Irina sighed and sat down in front of her daughter. "Sweetheart, Rambaldi predicted many things. He wrote about how your sister is the 'chosen one' to bind his works. Your part in it is merely as a witness to the events."

Arisha raised an eyebrow. "And being around stuff as it happens makes me important.... why?"

"You can witness things through time. It’s my belief that you have foresight.”

The younger woman rolled her eyes. “I’ve never heard a greater load of –”

“I didn’t know you spoke so informally around captors,” Irina was grinning.

Arisha shook her head. “You’re my mother.”

* * * *

Irina stood and paced again as if those words bothered her. She looked at her youngest child sitting there tied to a chair. Irina knew that the girl would run given the chance. She couldn’t give her that chance.

The room was silent for several minutes before Arisha spoke. “Why did you give me up?”

“Pardon?” Irina stopped pacing.

Arisha’s brow furrowed. “You mentioned before – two years ago – that you had enemies that would have come after me had they known I existed. Why would they?”

“I did many things I now regret. I did it because I love you.”

“But why were they after you?”

“Unpaid debts,” Irina said.

“You couldn’t have sent me to live with Sydney?”

“It would have raised too many questions,” Irina commented.

“How is Jack lately?” Arisha asked.

Irina continued to pace. “You can tell him when you see him,” Irina turned back to Saoirse. She stopped.

Arisha’s chair was empty. Irina barely heard the footsteps before she felt something crash into her temple.

* * * *

Arisha ran like a bat out of hell. She heard Katya cursing in Russian in the hall behind her as she turned a corner. Arisha suddenly smiled to herself. A sense of freedom reached her heart as she kicked down a door and was greeted with a gust of outdoor wind.

* * * *

“I need your help,” Arisha breathed into the phone as she attempted to stop herself from hyperventilating.

“Calm down, Love,” Sark replied. “Where are you?”

Arisha glanced at the streets around her. “I don’t know. Somewhere in Asia. I can’t recognize the dialect.”

“Put someone on the phone,” Sark instructed.

Arisha stepped away from the phone tapped the first man to walk by on the shoulder and held the phone out to him.

The man looked at her with an odd stare and then took the phone. He spoke for a moment and then handed the phone back to Arisha and walked away.

“You’re in Cambodia, Love,” Sark said. “And he thinks you’re an oddball.”

Arisha stared after the man. “I only speak Mandarin.”

“Well, by the sound of his vowels I would say you’re somewhere near the capital. I’ll have a contact meet you.”

Arisha breathed a sigh of relief and then laughed. “Don’t think this means we’re friends.”

“I would never dare to presume something that outrageous,” He teased and promptly hung up.
 
Okay, finally getting a chance to read and catch up on my PM's
First off, I love Arisha! and the foresight thing is brilliant. Also loved her calling Sark.

Next I hope you're having a blast on your archeology dig! tell us all about it when you get back!
Erin
 
just a quick bit of the upcoming chapter

Sark put the garment back on and grinned. “I have business in the area with an old associate.”

Arisha raised an eyebrow. “It’s my mother isn’t it?”
 
I apologize for the long wait. I had this all written out, but I couldn't find the notebook. Enjoy!

Chapter 9
Living

The streets of the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh were bustling as Arisha rushed across the traffic lane. She knew she was probably safe for the moment, but did not want to stay out in the open for any longer than necessary. Irina would probably come after her.

She made it to the front of a bank building and leaned against a stone column. Arisha crossed her arms and stared down at herself. Her loose-fitting khakis were relatively clean and her half-sleeve blue blouse had long since dried. Arisha reached to her hair and felt the once loosely curled locks going straight. It fell in waves naturally. Once or twice she wished she had inherited the smooth straight hair that Sydney had.

‘You look just like my mother. She was a beautiful woman.’ Arisha recalled Irina’s first words to her. Partially Arisha wished she had known her better, but had not been given the chance. Irina had now just hours before had the intention of handing her youngest daughter over to Jack- Arisha’s father.

Arisha sighed inside. She had withdrawn from the life she had lived two years before. Her adoptive parents were both deceased. Her siblings were in varying states of depression over the fact. Paul brushed it off and went on with his professional life at the ministry, Jocelyn spoke of it sometimes, and Nicole had been hit the hardest. She was Arisha’s elder by only a few months. The sister had sunk into a state of depression and not recovered. At times in conversations she had even mentioned their deceased mother as if she was still alive. Nicole was Arisha’s sole grounding to her life before and her only contact with the life of Saoirse Flynn. Saoirse was dead to everyone else.

It wasn’t as if anyone would believe Nicole if she claimed to have heard from her supposedly dead sister. To that extent, Arisha had sometimes feared that she would get her sister in worse trouble. Ultimately, however, Nicole was not her sister. Arisha’s only sister in this world was Sydney Bristow.

Arisha shut her eyes. They had said something about Sydney being in Covenant custody. So why were they seeking her out now? Why?

The young woman opened her eyes as she felt the rain begin to fall. Light droplets spattered her clothing as she stood silently and watched the water fall from the heavens. For a brief moment the sounds of the city were blocked out. The cool rain soothed her mind and pushed away her thoughts of desperation. It was going to work out. It had to.

After a few moments a taxi rolled to a halt at the sidewalk’s edge a few feet in front of her. As the back window rolled down a particularly familiar face can into view.

Arisha furrowed her brow and uncrossed her arms. A slight smile came to her face briefly. Their paths had crossed once again.

* * * *

“What are you doing in Cambodia?” Arisha questioned as she raised a hand to push away the jacket Sark had offered her.

Sark put the garment back on and grinned. “I have business in the area with an old associate.”

Arisha raised an eyebrow. “It’s my mother isn’t it?”

Sark merely nodded. “But I’m not about to hand you back to her. Irina and I merely needed to catch up on old times.”

Arisha shook her head. “You’re lying.”

“She made an offer. Seeing as I am already employed by the Covenant I refused,” he explained.

“What was the offer?”

Sark smirked. “That, Love, is a conversation for another time,” he sighed and reached out a hand to brush the wet locks from her face. “Arisha…”

She realized it was the first time he had actually called her by that name. “What?”

Sark rubbed his temples and then looked back at her. “Arisha, does the Covenant know that you’re Sydney Bristow’s sister?”

The young woman shrugged a shoulder and shook her head. “I’ve never told them and unless they know by some other source they’ve never spoken about it. Why?”

Sark did not answer immediately. His blue eyes just studied her. There was a long moment of silence before he drew a deep breath. “You cannot go back to Zurich.”

Arisha tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Because I just delivered something to the Covenant that will put your life in danger.”

Arisha slapped him hard across the face. “What did you give them?”

Sark rubbed his face and went on. “A Rambaldi document. I barely had the chance to look at it before it was snatched by my partner”

“What did it say?”

“Do you want the gist of it or the novel?”

“The short version,” Arisha said simply. “I’ve read enough of his bulls***.”

“It mentions one who will carry and convey the message of Rambaldi. One called the Passenger. Her bloodline will be shared with the chosen one’s,” He stopped and watched her reaction.

“Sydney,” Arisha shook her head. “How does this threaten my life?”

“Well, obviously the Covenant will attempt to capture you. But the threat on your life doesn’t come from them. There are others.”

Arisha shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. The description didn’t match any manuscript she had read. She was still trying to figure it all out. She looked back at those penetrating blue eyes of his. “It’s not me. Look, Sark, I know my role in Rambaldi’s ramblings and it has nothing to do with this Passenger.”

Sark looked at her as if to say ‘I don’t believe you’. “Still, Arisha, you can’t go back to Zurich.”

“But the Covenant can’t link me to Sydney. No one outside the CIA or my family knows.”

“The Covenant has a mole within the CIA. If this news reaches them and they question Sydney’s bloodline the search will begin for Saoirse Flynn. You won’t be able to escape them.”

Arisha shook her head. “I don’t have a safe place to go.”

Sark reached into his jacket pocket and removed a crisp white sealed envelope. “A passport and plane ticket. Forgive the name, but it was much easier to copy something already on file. I took the liberty of finding clothing for you. You do still wear the same size as two years ago?”

Arisha caught his smirk as she took the envelope. She tore it open. When her eyes fell on the destination she only glared at Sark.

* * * *

Peter Simons hated his job. For some being around the wealthy all day might have been a pleasure, yet Simons was still to discover what they saw in them. To him they were a snooty bunch of upper crust dogs that he had to kiss up to for a meager dollar tip here and there. Not to mention that the uniform made him look as if he had just walked off of Tower of Terror. It was complete with the bellhop cap. It was certainly degrading, but it was a job after all; just a job…things could have been worse.

Peter stood waiting by the outside of the hotel with the luggage cart. He was silently anticipating who would be next to pull up. A movie star on vacation or a wealthy heir out spending a million because of boredom. Simons would not have predicted what did come. Nor would he ever know who she really was.

Staring off into space and tossing coins from tips into his cap set on the cart, he did not register the car at first in his mind. It was late at night. No one ever really came by at this hour, but if they did that was why he was there.

A black BMW sedan pulled up and the driver killed the engine. A moment later the door opened and a woman emerged. She was perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five with straightened blonde hair. Her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses- rather impractical for the late hour and Simons wondered if she had worn them while driving. Either that or the woman was getting over a late hangover. She certainly was not inebriated in any sense as she gracefully strode towards Simons. Her neck was encircled by a long scarf over a gray business jacket.

“Checking in?” Simons asked as he quickly put his cap back on, ignoring the sensation of the remaining coins hitting his head.

The woman removed her sunglasses to reveal deep brown eyes. She nodded. “Is there a valet to take the car?” Her accent was choppy, she was probably from eastern Europe.

Peter nodded. “Um… Just leave the keys with me, Ma’am and I’ll have the ticket and your luggage brought to your room. I’ll just need your name.”

“Melnikov. Anya Melnikov,” The woman smiled with white teeth and then sauntered away on high-heeled boots.

Aware of how his eyes were glued to her form, Simons tore his gaze away and set to his work.

* * * *

Arisha flicked on the lights of her hotel suite and immediately fell onto the bed. She pressed her hands to her face. It had been close. Why would they so suddenly be coming after her? Sydney was her sister and Jack was her father. They did care about her- in their own way that was.

She prayed it had nothing to do with the whole Rambaldi prophecy. It was a farce. It had to be. Arisha had since destroyed what material evidence she possessed of her part in that scheme. What she could destroy at least. The wind had seemed to carry that piece of the manuscript she had let go right back to her doorstep. Walking away from the shore back to her car that day she had found the paper stuck beneath her windshield wiper as if someone had placed it there. Since then she had locked it up in a bank in Switzerland.

Arisha Vera Bristow released a deep breath and stood. She strode to the curtain covered window and pulled back the drapes. The lights of the Los Angeles skyline greeted her.
 
Yay an update!
Fabulous as usual, it's a shame no new readers are reading this story, it's such a great fic, well thought out and well written!
E
 
I'M CLAIRE.

LOVE THE STORY SO FAR. LIKEDTHE CLIFFHANGER OF HER BEEN IN LA. I HOPE THAT BY THE END OF THIS SEASON THREE RELATED FANFIC THERE WILL BE A BIT MORE ARISHA/SARK.THERE GOOD TOGETHER. NEVER LIKED THE IDEA OF HIM IN LOVE WITH LAUREN. I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU ARE GOING O CONTINUE THIS STORY BECAUSE THERE HASN'T BEEN A NEW CHAPTER IN AGES. SORRY IF I SOUND PUSHY.LOL. I JUST HATE IT WHEN YOU GET INTO A STORY THEN IT IS INCOMPLETE.

Cheekychick662@hotmail.com
 
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